


a productive solution

by kira_katrine



Category: Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: Cyborgs, F/F, Getting Together, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-17
Updated: 2020-10-17
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:22:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27070408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kira_katrine/pseuds/kira_katrine
Summary: Having a computer for a brain doesn't make your memories any more objective than anyone else's, as it turns out.Now, Airiam has to decide what to do about it.
Relationships: Airiam/Michael Burnham
Comments: 10
Kudos: 16
Collections: Little Black Dress Flash 2020





	a productive solution

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LittleRaven](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleRaven/gifts).



Airiam remembered the things she remembered in perfect color.

The flaming red of Tilly’s hair and the ice blue of Detmer’s artificial eye. The dark blue of their uniforms, the shining silver and gold of their badges, the jet black of their boots. The brilliant glow of the stars against the endless void of space.

The beautiful brown of Michael’s skin, and each faint freckle that dusted her cheekbones like distant stars. The dark near-black of her eyes, so deep Airiam thought perhaps entire worlds might be found within them if one looked hard enough.

The things she didn’t remember were just--gone. As if they’d never been. Only conspicuous by their absence, by her knowledge that _something_ must have happened in the rest of the time she’d lived.

It hadn’t used to be like that. Memory had used to exist on more of a continuum, as it did for most people. Some things she remembered in great detail, others not at all, but there was a whole range in between of fuzzy recollections and bits and pieces that existed in some grey area of reality, that may have happened the way she thought or may not. Now, it was black and white and every vibrant shade but grey.

“I see you and Michael have been hanging out a lot,” Tilly had said nineteen days, two hours and twenty-two minutes before. Once again, she had found Airiam sorting through her memories, deciding which to keep and which to discard. Which were precious and which were useful and which were superfluous. Which bits of her life she just didn’t need anymore. 

Airiam froze. “I suppose we have,” she said. “She is my friend. As are you.”

“Do you see all your _friends_ like that?” Tilly said, in a slightly teasing tone.

“My visual processor ‘sees’ my friends, and everyone else, objectively,” Airiam said. “I do not choose what it captures.” The clip she had been examining, an image of Michael smiling--one of surprisingly many in Airiam’s memory bank, given that Michael didn’t all that often--seemed to light up the whole room, playing over and over again in a loop.

“But you are choosing to spend this long looking at them,” Tilly said. “You literally are right now.”

“And?” Airiam said. She knew she should have done a better job hiding it. Maybe she shouldn’t have to, here in her own quarters, but she wasn’t like most people. Most people’s memories couldn’t be projected on a screen for all to see.

“Well,” said Tilly, “when I realize I want to look at someone like that, I do something about it. And I don’t mean just keep looking. That’s not really a productive solution.”

“And what would you consider a _productive solution_ to be?”

“Um, maybe you could try talking? About your feelings?”

“Like you are trying to get me to do right now.”

“Well, yeah. It’s usually a good idea. I don’t get why everybody doesn’t do it more often.”

Airiam hadn’t exactly been lying before. She really had still been figuring out what her feelings for Michael were. On the one hand, she knew, but it was still the first time she’d felt this way about someone in a long time. The first time since Stephen. The first time since she looked like this.

And Michael was probably still figuring out a lot of things too. Things that had nothing to do with Airiam whatsoever.

Maybe this was one of the times when talking about it wasn’t a good idea.

Airiam could tell some people didn’t seem quite sure how human she still was.

There had been a time when she herself hadn’t been sure. But even then, there had been no question that she had feelings.

There had been a time when many people hadn’t seemed sure how human Michael was either. It hadn’t lasted long. Certainly, none of the things Airiam had noticed about Michael were exclusive to humans. Not her brilliance or her compassion or her courage. Not the warmth of her smile or the sparkle in her eyes when she’d found something particularly fascinating. And none of the things many had feared in Michael, or that Airiam had feared in her new self, were entirely absent among humans either.

But perhaps ‘human’ was never really the word she was looking for. Not for Michael, and not for herself.

They were in Airiam’s quarters. Tilly couldn’t make it; she’d had a big assignment due for the command training program, but Detmer and Owosekun had been there along with Michael and Airiam. They _had_ been; they’d just left. 

Michael had seemed distracted. Like something was going on that she didn’t want to talk about. A lot had happened on the Discovery lately, to be sure; between the end of the war and Captain Pike coming on and these mysterious red signals, and they were all busy, but none of that really explained it. Airiam wished she could lean over and kiss away the tension between her brows. 

“I know there’s been a lot happening,” Airiam said. “I want to help. However I can.”

“I’m fine,” Michael said. “Thank you, but I can handle it.”

“I know you can,” Airiam said. “I’m not doubting your capabilities. But that doesn’t mean you should have to.”

“I’m not sure this is something you can--not just you, I’m not doubting your capabilities either. I don’t know how much anyone can really help with this at this point.”

“Well, sometimes it helps to just talk,” Airiam said. A thought occurred to her. “I don’t have to remember anything you don’t want me to,” she said. “Whatever it is--I never heard it, if that’s what you want. Nothing would have to be any different--”

“I don’t need you to do that,” Michael said. “That’s not what I want--unless you want to--I just--” She seemed to be having trouble verbalizing something.

“What do you want?” Airiam said. 

And then Michael was kissing her, Airiam leaning in to meet her without even realizing it, Michael’s warm soft lips against Airiam’s just-too-firm-to-be-real ones. Michael’s hand reaching up and touching Airiam's cheek as she pressed herself against her body, as Airiam’s own hand found its place on the curve of Michael’s waist--

Michael pulled back, eyes opening wide, lips slightly parted. They both spoke at once--

“I--”

“Are you--” 

Michael smiled slightly. “I think I’ve wanted to do that for a while.”

Airiam knew that most people who fell in love (if that was what this really was) did not remember every moment of it. She had experienced it herself, of course, love with a standard human brain. She had never thought she would have to actively choose which moments with Stephen she wanted to keep with her. She had never considered that, so soon, there might not be any more.

She had no idea how there could possibly be enough space in her memory banks for everything she was feeling now. Surely she would have to cut it down to a more reasonable size, just as a practical measure. The way it was now, seeing Michael seemed to wipe every other thought from her mind, like some kind of system glitch--but she knew better than to think that was what it was. And kissing her--

It had been fifteen days, ten hours and forty-two minutes since she and Michael Burnham had kissed for the first time, and in those days, Airiam had wondered just how someone like Tilly, who loved to talk about feelings so much, ever got by in a place like this. So often, it seemed, there was simply no time. So little time for so many feelings, packed into a confined space, whether one measured in minutes or gigabytes, whether you chose which to keep or if natural biological processes did it for you. So much, so fast.

Michael was asleep in Airiam’s arms, in Airiam’s bed, looking peaceful and still except for her breathing. This moment was different, quiet, slow, but still so _much_.

There would be time when she woke up. There would have to be.


End file.
